Distributed Safety Program Processing With Signature Traceability
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing methods for developing safety-related user programs for safety controllers are limited to closed applications on a single device, lacking traceability and vulnerability to falsification.
Innovation Solution
A method for generating and processing safety-related user programs across multiple distributed device environments, each with a signature device to ensure data integrity and traceability, using a signature verification process to authenticate and verify data transfers.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If user program data are generated on a single device in a closed application, then the processing is simple and self-contained, but traceability is lost and the system is vulnerable to falsification
Solution Approach 1:
The system divides the user program data into multiple segments, each processed and signed by different device environments in a distributed manner. Each segment maintains its integrity through individual signature verification, enabling traceability across multiple devices while preventing falsification of individual segments.
Solution Approach 2:
Signature data act as intermediaries between device environments, providing verifiable proof of data integrity and origin. Each device environment signs the user program data it processes, creating a chain of trust that enables traceability across the distributed system without requiring direct trust between all devices.
2Reliability
If user program data are transferred between distributed device environments, then traceability and falsification detection are improved, but the processing time and complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
Signature data are generated in advance during the data processing stage, before transfer between device environments. This preliminary signing action enables rapid verification upon receipt, reducing the time penalty associated with security checks and allowing parallel processing of multiple data segments.
3Reliability
If signature verification is performed on each data transfer, then data integrity is ensured, but the number of processing steps increases
Solution Approach 1:
Multiple signature verifications are merged into a single comprehensive verification process. The system combines the signature data from different device environments and performs a unified verification that validates the entire chain of processing, reducing the number of separate verification steps while maintaining data integrity across all transfers.
Data Source
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AI summary
The invention relates to the processing of a safety-related user program for a safety control system and, in a particularly preferred embodiment, in particular to the creation, start-up and maintenance of safety-related user programs of a control device for automation machines by means of mobile terminals, such as a smartphone, tablet, notebook or PC, for which purpose the editors run on the mobile terminal in question, whereas the compilers for producing the machine code run on a remote cloud computer. The machine code for the safety-related control system is therefore produced on a cloud computer. The identification between the mobile terminal and the control device, which consequently is, in particular, safety-related, is unique, and the data required for producing the machine code, such as the source code data of the user program, are secured by means of a unique signature and transmitted to the cloud computer. On the cloud computer, the machine code is produced from the transmitted data. A new signature is generated by means of the arising data and the signature from the previous step. If the machine code is successfully produced, the produced machine code, with the signature and possible metadata, can be automatically or manually forwarded to a test environment. In particular, the entire safety life cycle is covered, including simulation of the application, start-up and distribution to the machines, because every step in the lift cycle is automatically documented and can be clearly tracked at any time and corruptions of a step can be detected.